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Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC Review

Today we test with the latest Catalyst 14.7 beta driver and Forceware 340.52 driver.
system

We are using one of our brand new test rigs supplied by DINOPC and built to our specifications. If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page. We are using an Apple 30 inch Cinema HD monitor for this review today.

We include the GTX750Ti today as a comparison to show you what you can get if you move up from the £100-£120 market.

We test all cards at their ‘out of the box’ speeds in this review today.

Comparison cards:
Asus R9 285 Strix (954mhz core / 1,375mhz memory)
XFX R9 280X (1000 mhz more / 1500 mhz memory)
XFX R9 280 Black OC Edition (1000 mhz core / 1300 mhz memory)
Asus GTX760 Direct CU II OC (1006 mhz core / 1502 mhz memory)
Asus GTX750 Ti (1072 mhz / 1350 mhz memory)

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Software and Games:

3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Unigine Heaven
Unigine Valley
Tomb Raider
Grid Autosport
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Battlefield 4
Thief
Total War: Rome 2

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

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5 comments

  1. I agree with what was said on the pricing. Why buy this right now when you can get good deals on R9 280s?

  2. It’s a replacement for the 280…so the price diff will only last as long as the 280s last.

  3. Hmm, the KitGuru noise guide is a bit low on the decibels. And holy crap, I just realized how energy efficient the 750 ti is compared to its sadly low power :/ If only all cards wasted that few watts 🙁

  4. This is a clear and concise review one of the best I’ve come across. Your use of similarly OC AIB customs leaves the reader not conjecturing like so many that went reference 760’s.

    The 285 is a fine substitution for the 280, and while there’s still great deals on a lot of the 280’s, yes you’d have to quandary in which to go with. If your one to kind of think of a C-F in the near term, I’d say a 285 as it including CrossFire XDMA might make a strong contention (like to see C-F 280’s vs. 285’s). I think if I recognized I wasn’t predicting a monitor upgrade (1440p) during the life of the card, the choice of improved tessellation performance, along with it quad-shader layout, allowing four primitives to be rendered per clock cycle instead of two might be more useful as more titles evolve. Lower power is good, while I don’t see the whole memory @1080p add any apprehension.

    It’s a hard call on the AMD side between (they win either way)… but consigns the 760 as no longer any smart deal. Then with Nvidia saying “nothing” as to its’ pricing, while bring it’s big brother into the fight with its price drop, one can pretty much figure Nvidia will let the 760 go quietly into the night.

  5. Look at the 750Ti as the “5670” for the mainstream resolution today, just as the 5670 the no aux-power choice when 1680×1050 was in vogue. Given @1080p with the setting at medium is more its place to keep from “slide show” Fps, judging it in with this group is frivolous. Look at similarly OC customs of a 750Ti and 260X when gaming, the 260X needs 20% more while neither offer any difference in settings or immersion.

    It’s nice to save power during 2-3 hours of gaming, but if you sleep (monitor off) AMD ZeroCore drops to 2-3W, while the 750Ti draws 5-7W when no one is using it perhaps 18 hours a day! If you really look at the total efficiency over a month’s power usage that saving is not all that pronounced.